ak97x's review
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
Beautiful writing, but always fell short of greatness.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Abortion, Ableism, Blood, Body horror, Confinement, Gore, Animal death, Child abuse, Grief, Medical content, Mental illness, Dysphoria, and Excrement
Minor: Abandonment, Fire/Fire injury, Hate crime, and Medical content
jdsatori's review
2.0
Rarely do I read a book that starts out slow, turns into something totally mind-blowingly fabulous, and then about 50 pages before the end crumbles into complete nonsense. She had a great story flying right along, then decided to get 'experimental' and lost me. What a prick tease.
sucreslibrary's review
challenging
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
2.5
i was on board with this book for a good while. is it extremely overwritten? yes. are most of the characters incredibly annoying? also yes. but there was something in the beginning and in portions of later segments that i enjoyed.
honestly, this book is far longer than it has any right to be, and that definitely added to the low rating. there are sections of this book i was dragging myself through, waiting for it to get back to the plot i cared about. and then that segment wrapped up and i was dismayed to see there was still a hundred or so pages left that were even more meandering than the ones preceding it.
it skips around in time quite a bit, looping back and forth from the present to the past in a way that constantly threw me off. at different points of the book i preferred either the present sections or the past sections and was loathe to return to the opposite instead of continuing with the story i cared about. theres also so many organizations and groups that are created and name dropped that i had a ton of trouble keeping up with, plus certain minor events or characters that are called back to three hundred pages later that i'd already forgotten about.
i really tried to give this as much grace as i could, but in the end the last 150 pages dragged it down so much i can't give it a higher rating.
honestly, this book is far longer than it has any right to be, and that definitely added to the low rating. there are sections of this book i was dragging myself through, waiting for it to get back to the plot i cared about. and then that segment wrapped up and i was dismayed to see there was still a hundred or so pages left that were even more meandering than the ones preceding it.
it skips around in time quite a bit, looping back and forth from the present to the past in a way that constantly threw me off. at different points of the book i preferred either the present sections or the past sections and was loathe to return to the opposite instead of continuing with the story i cared about. theres also so many organizations and groups that are created and name dropped that i had a ton of trouble keeping up with, plus certain minor events or characters that are called back to three hundred pages later that i'd already forgotten about.
i really tried to give this as much grace as i could, but in the end the last 150 pages dragged it down so much i can't give it a higher rating.
dreamofbookspines's review
3.0
Reread review: this is a confusing mess of a book that falls solidly between 3 and 4 stars. I love the premise, but Jackson gets too caught up in elaborate prose to make much headway on plot advancement. The twists are fantastic, and I loved getting to know Nora (and, to a much lesser extent, Blanche), but I wanted more. I wanted more world-building, more elaboration on the characters' stories, just...more.
There was so much promise in this novel, and in the unique story, but it got bogged down in about 200 pages too much of nearly unreadable prose that was too out there to add anything to the actual book. I wish the editor had been far more ruthless and told Jackson to stick to the story, because there's definitely something there. If you skim over large sections of it, and only read the story bits, it's totally worthwhile. Otherwise, this book is kind of a chore.
There was so much promise in this novel, and in the unique story, but it got bogged down in about 200 pages too much of nearly unreadable prose that was too out there to add anything to the actual book. I wish the editor had been far more ruthless and told Jackson to stick to the story, because there's definitely something there. If you skim over large sections of it, and only read the story bits, it's totally worthwhile. Otherwise, this book is kind of a chore.
_fallinglight_'s review
adventurous
challenging
dark
funny
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Content Warnings
Moderate: Body horror, Sexual content, Stalking, Racial slurs, Ableism, Death, Fatphobia, Medical content, and Mental illness
Minor: Suicidal thoughts and Suicide
jessalynn_librarian's review
2.0
After the book sat on my shelf, unread, for months, I finally gave it a chance and really enjoyed the first 300 pages or so. It was clever, and interesting, and I had no idea where it would go. I'm not sure what changed after that 3/4 mark, but once the 'will she or won't she?' question resolved itself, I could've cared less. I itched to have it be OVER. Only by stubbornness did I finish the book and toss it down with relief. I think that part of the problem was that I didn't like Nora, and I lost interest in reconstructing her childhood, and at times the story was sacrificed at the altar of clever language.
lolaleviathan's review
3.0
This book was a lot of fun, but like a lot of sci-fi-esque novels that use a wacky trope to explore pertinent Social Issues (which is almost all sci-fi-esque novels), it fell short for me. I loved the idea of the Atonement (the US bombing itself to atone for dropping the big ones on Japan) and the way conjoined twins could function as a symbol of all kinds of minority identities). I'm into exploring the whole otherness=monstrosity thing, and she did a lot of funny stuff with it on the surface, but it just didn't gel for me. Plus the characters and plot also felt spotty and half-realized. I loved Nora's first-person narrative voice, and the "scrapbook" sections. I felt Jackson reaching--this is an incredibly ambitious novel, and that's hard to pull off. I enjoyed Half Life, but I wanted to love it.
harmonybat's review against another edition
4.0
This is a terrifying look at the boundary between self and other exploded. It's the story of conjoined twins Blanche and Nora and what it takes for them to start looking for themselves and each other. It's a tale of casual murder and the blowback from hollow friendships. It's a book I loved and can't imagine recommending very much at all.
apatrick's review against another edition
1.0
I had to power through this one, just to get it done. Promising start, but it never panned out. One of a pair of conjoined twins wants to behead the other one, because she's been "sleeping" for something like 15 years. All through the book, the question was, "is she going to do it or not?" Eventually, we found out why Blanche was sleeping, but that wasn't explored as much as it could have been. Margaret Atwood would have written this book better. I left it tucked into the pocket of the seat in front of me on the plane.
hyzenthlay76's review against another edition
2.0
I could give this one more star for weirdness alone, but when it comes down to what I really value in a story, this one didn't have it. I didn't care about the characters, other than a morbid fascination with what they would do or say next. Jackson is wildly imaginative, her Siamese musings incredible, her wordplay cunning and acrobatic, but I never got lost in the story. Jackson was too predominant a personality in her own work and I just kept thinking "wow, she's clever!" It drips with subculture dogma and some of the sexuality was off the deep end. The book was also about 100 pages too long, and the ending a complete surrealist disaster.